


Darkness Comes Crawling

by EveandJohnny



Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: Dark Seeds Storyline, Depression, F/F, Hogwarts AU, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 10:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8976364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveandJohnny/pseuds/EveandJohnny
Summary: Kawada Noriko is a lonesome student at Hogwarts, pestered by dark thoughts and isolated from everyone. When an unknown force calls her to the Great Lake she discovers that she is not the only one who struggles with a dark influence. Luckily, Professor Slughorn comes to the rescue but what he reveals doesn't sound too promising.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AikoIsari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AikoIsari/gifts).



> This has been written for the Digimon SecretSanta 2016 event. AikoIsari, I really hope you enjoy this little piece of AU and you have happy holidays!

There it was again, the thumping pain right behind her temples. Noriko closed her eyes for a moment and rubbed the hurting spots. When she opened her eyes again a girl, probably a little older than her, stood in front of her and looked at her sympathetically. Instead of seeking help, she rolled her eyes and turned away, leaving the girl a little dumbfounded and hurt. _She just wanted to help you. You know, you cannot hide the problem forever,_ her sensible voice said in her head. _I know, but of what use could she be? She wouldn’t understand and probably send me straight to Madam Pomfrey. That’s the last place I want to go._  

She continued down the hallway, eyes to the floor until she reached the room for her next class: Transfiguration. Nobody paid attention to her – it was as if she melted perfectly with the rough stone walls. She slid into the bank, opened her book when suddenly – everything went black.

She awoke in the infirmary wing, a moist cloth on her forehead. Madam Pomfrey, along with the nurse-in-training Mrs Longbottom, hurried towards her. “Now, Darling, how do you feel?”

Noriko felt pressure in her head and an uncomfortable heat rising in her body. Nonetheless, she only said “I’m fine. What happened?” She gasped suddenly as a bang of pain hit her head.

“You blacked out just before Transfiguration, dear. And I don’t think that you are fine at all. Stay here. Mrs Longbottom will keep an eye on you and I will bring you an herbal tea and a potion to improve your over-all condition.” With that, Madam Pomfrey turned on her heel and hurtled through the dorm. Noriko ignored the sympathetic look Mrs Longbottom gave her and curled up under her blanket. Why couldn’t they all just leave her alone?

 

In the late afternoon Madam Pomfrey considered her fit enough to go back to the common room. On her way down to the dungeons she ran again into the girl she’d seen before Transfiguration. The girl gave her a smile and wanted to say something but she scurried past her further down the stairs.  
  She despised it but she needed to ask someone what they had done in Transfiguration and Charms today because there was probably a chunk of homework due tomorrow. So she turned to a blonde girl she only briefly knew – but who did she know better anyway? – and asked her.

  “Oh, uhm, sure. For Transfig it’s a one-foot-long paper about the second principle of Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. We shall discuss it and find an example. And for Charms it’s to practice the Cheering Charm we learned today. Let me show you.” With that, the blonde witch grabbed her wand, mumbled something and pointed to Noriko. A little yellow arrow shot from the tip and hit her lightly on the chest. She only looked on the spot where the arrow had vanished inside her and then to the blonde. The girl was stunned. “You… you should be laughing – or at least smiling. Do you feel happy at the moment?”

 Noriko listened intrinsically but not a spark of happiness could be found. She was as grumpy and unnerved as ever. So she shook her head. Then she pointed her wand at the blonde girl, murmured the word perfectly although the other girl had barely whispered it and achieved immediate success. Her opponent laughed and giggled. She on the other hand could barely manage a smirk. With a quiet “thanks” she left her giggling.

***

In the middle of the night Noriko woke up, in the first moment confused why. Then she felt it, a sudden urge to go out. It was as if a magnetic force drew her out of the bed. She quickly threw over her coat and slipped into warm boots. The first frosts had afflicted Hogwarts only a few days ago. As quietly as she could did she close the door to the dorm and headed to a secret passage that led up to the Hieroglyph Hall. It was only known to students of Slytherin, being frequently used to meet students from other houses at night when secrecy was needed.

That mysterious force dragged her towards the entrance hall where nobody was around. She held her breath and slid to the portal without being seen. After the Battle of Hogwarts, security regulations had been loosened to the standards of before Voldemort’s second rise to power and it was fairly easy for a student to leave the castle. If, of course, they didn’t make any noise.

The moon shone pale in the sky and dipped everything in an eerie silvery glow. It looked as if all the colours had been drained from every object in the grounds. She made her way down the Great Lake where the force was pulling her. When she reached the banks of the lake she noticed someone else already standing there, a little further from where she was. She hid behind a boulder and watched the other one carefully. After a few moments she recognized the stranger: it was the girl she had met twice in the hallways that day. The girl stared blankly and unmoved out into the depths of the lake. Before Noriko could force her body to move back to the school it put itself into motion and walked to the other girl against her will. But not even when she stood right beside her did the other girl notice her. Then she knew why. Before she could make another straight thought her mind was swept clean and all rational thinking was gone. It had been replaced by the words “You are the darkness.” They were the only words needed and the only ones that made sense.

  The surface of the lake crinkled and out of it rose a shadowy creature, partly see-through and from no form known to mankind. It spread what was supposed to be its arms and whispered “Very well, you are the Chosen Ones. I sense that you are perfectly suited for the task” it indicated to Noriko “but you have still too much hope in yourself. But we can get rid of that immediately.” With this, it lifted its arms and the other girl was pulled up at her collar, swaying lifelessly back and forth in the air like a puppet.

The creature geared up for inserting itself into the girl when a blue shimmering fish darted out of nowhere between her and the creature, causing it to cry out in pain. The girl slumped but before she could hit the ground a man had caught her in one arm, with the other one swinging a wand to hold off the creature. He shot another patronus but the mysterious creature had already vanished into the lake.

Noriko was conscious again, not really knowing what had happened only seconds ago. She risked a glance sidewards and noticed her Head of House Professor Slughorn holding the other girl who seemed to be insensible. He turned to her. “Noriko! Are you okay? Please, follow me to my office, we have to talk about what just occurred.” He put his wand into his robes and grabbed her gently by the elbow to lead her up to the school. Instead of going in through the portal he walked to a small well at the base of a wall. A secret passageway opened with a dip of his wand against the stones in a certain pattern. The passage led straight to the staircase heading up to the sixth floor where his office was located. “Saves us a lot of unnecessary walk” he commented. It was the only talk they had on their way up.

Noriko had been in his office once before when Slughorn had tried to talk her into his Slug Club. He found her an extraordinarily bright student and promised her a steep career he could help her up. He was still a little disappointed that she had refused but was clever enough to not push her steadily. She would remember him when the time had come.

In the time between her last visit and now Slughorn had accumulated even more plushy cushions, comfy armchairs and intricate chandeliers that made his office look more like a room of dubious gaiety than the place where an exceptional potioneer did his work. Slughorn laid the girl on a red-and-white striped sofa and indicated an armchair for Noriko. Then he hurried towards a desk where innumerous amounts of ingredients were stacked and a cauldron stood shiningly above a fireplace. He took a small leather-bound book from the shelf above, browsed it quickly and then started to brew a potion as an antidote to what the shadow creature had done to the girl. Noriko still didn’t know her name or her house. She watched her breathing slowly and grimacing from time to time as if she had a bad dream.

 It seemed like an eternity but the clock on the wall read only ten minutes later when the professor finished brewing the potion and administered it to the girl on the couch. She coughed and sputtered but finally opened her eyes and seemed to breathe normally. “Thank Merlin, you’re alive. Now, love, who are you?” he asked her and then turned to Noriko as like a partner in crime and whispered “I want to make sure she remembers correctly but I also don’t know her name.” Noriko just nodded, not really wanting to bond with her teacher.

It took the girl a moment before she answered. “Uhm, my name is Yagami Hikari, I’m fourteen and in Hufflepuff. Oh, Professor Slughorn, it’s you! How come I am in your office?”

  Slughorn was familiar with people who didn’t remember a thing after having faced a traumatic event. He brought her a cup of tea, moved some cushions under her back and threw a blanket over her. Then he pulled two chairs beside the sofa; one for Noriko and one for himself. Hikari sipped her tea graciously. “Now, girls. Please tell me what happened out at the lake and why, for Merlin’s sake, have you been out there at all.”

 Noriko looked at Hikari, but she surely needed more time to recover, so she took over speaking. She caught a glance from Slughorn which threatened her to tell _everything_ as if he’d sensed that something bothered her since the begin of the term. “Now, er, Professor, I can only speak for myself here but since I returned to Hogwarts after the summer holidays I had constant headaches and I feel very depressed. It’s not that I’ve been a very cheerful and outgoing person before but I have isolated myself a lot more since then.”

Slughorn listened in horror. He was wondering why she had never asked anybody for help. But this was not a simple depression. To be drawn to dark forces like that, something significant must have happened when she was home. Before he could press her for details, however, Hikari interrupted.

 “That has happened to me, too” she piped up in a small voice “But it was not as severe as for you, Noriko. My friends noticed and I told them which helped me to cope. I noticed that something was wrong with you, Noriko, that’s why I tried to comfort you yesterday.”

“Girls, this is awful” Slughorn said vigorously. “You have to tell me immediately what happened to you in summer break! You have come in touch with some serious Dark Magic and have been affected by it ever since. However, if I know what it is maybe I can help you.” 

The girls looked at each other, hesitating. Would it really be wise to inform their teacher?  After all, they hadn’t hidden this secret from everyone around them for nothing.

Slughorn coughed.

Hiraki drew a surrendering breath and started to talk. “Well, it was in the second week of holidays. It was terribly warm so I had opened the windows and my room door and slept without a blanket. I can remember that I woke up to a strange whispering and a sound as if a balloon slowly lost air. It was so dark that I didn’t really see a thing but suddenly I could feel a kind of fabric drifting up my arm before something cold touched my forehead. But it was gone as quickly as it had come. Only after it my sleeping schedule went totally out of control, I was tired during the day but was wide awake at night. Things got better when I moved back to Hogwarts but there are still dark thoughts lingering in my head.”

 While she had been talking, Slughorn had taken notes and was now busy looking for a book somewhere on the enormous bookshelves in his office. When he had found it, he sat back beside the sofa and ushered Noriko to tell her story.

 “It was quite like for Hikari. But to me it happened in the third week of the break. I, too, remember the feel of fabric and the cold touch on my forehead. Though sleeping isn’t that big of a problem. It’s more that, as you said it, the dark thoughts haunt my mind. I’ve never been a happy-go-lucky and outgoing person. But in retrospect this has worsened since this night.”

 Slughorn nodded and continued leafing through the book. When he had found the page he needed he showed it to the girls. “What fits your description are Rumbleweeds. This might sound silly but they are not to be underestimated. They bring the darkness to children who are very special in a way the magical world has yet to fully grasp. What we know, however, is that those affected are depressed, in some cases to the extent that they are suicidal. This is very bad indeed, but they also carry dark seeds in them which can spread onto other children. With the dark energy produced by the seeds, the effect grows until it also can affect overly happy children. Thus they are more receptive for toxic ideas like those that brought Voldemort to power. So it is essential that we get rid of your dark seeds. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t give a cure to them.”

Now it was the girls’ turn to look at him in horror. “But Professor, what will we do then? It can basically never be stopped!”

Slughorn shook his head. “I wouldn’t be that pessimistic. As it works kind of similar to what Dementors do the assumption that happiness may help is not too farfetched. I didn’t conjure a patronus without reason when I rescued you.”

 It was a lot Noriko had to wrap her head around. Dark seeds. Rumbleweeds. Dementors. Patroni. She had heard about the last two before in History and Muggle Studies but for a third-year-student it still made little sense. Voldemort’s rise to power and the Battle of Hogwarts had happened before her time at Hogwarts. It wasn’t that long ago – seven years are not much in a wizard’s or witch’s life – but normality quickly took over the daily life at Hogwarts once the rubble was cleared. Now the Battle was a part of the history gallery in the hallways, coated with dust like everything else. Some teachers found it important to sensitize their pupils so that such peril could never happen again. On the other hand, there were those that didn’t want to talk about it. Many had been diagnosed with PTSD afterwards and only some had sought for help form Muggle therapists. St. Mungo’s had only accomplished Muggle standards in mental health care in very recent years.

The whistling of the kettle brought her back to the here and now. Slughorn had stood up and was looking for yet another book. Hikari leaned in to her and whispered “I feel scared. I don’t want to be responsible for spreading darkness among the pupils.”

Noriko nodded. “Me neither. But I also think that Professor Slughorn cannot solve this problem alone. We should at least talk to Professor McGonagall as our Headmistress.”

***

After this turbulent night things calmed down a little. The teachers had a few meetings where they investigated the Great Lake but could not find a trace of the Rumbleweeds. However, Noriko’s and Hikari’s health conditions improved enormously. This was mostly owed to the fact that the two girls developed a deep friendship to each other. As a fourth-year, Hikari could help Noriko perfectly with her homework. After school they spent their free time together in the grounds or in Hogsmeade when visits where due. Hikari’s friends, especially her brother Taichi who was a fellow Hufflepuff, welcomed Noriko warmly in their circle.

  
  Until the end of the term, nothing bad happened again and soon this frosty night was not more than a smudged memory.

_But the origin of the dark seeds and the Rumbleweeds had yet to be found…_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorting:  
> Hikari – Hufflepuff  
> Noriko – Slytherin  
> Taichi – Hufflepuff  
> Sora – Gryffindor  
> Yamato – Slytherin  
> Jjou – Slytherin  
> Mimi – Gryffindor  
> Koushiro – Ravenclaw  
> Takeru – Gryffindor
> 
> (Don’t sue me – this sorting is scientifically based on my gut feeling.)


End file.
